The Independent newspaper in London ran a story yesterday explaining that if musicians want to make money, it’s not by releasing albums – it’s by going on the road.

Here’s a bit of the meat from the article:

The massive revenues were part of a music touring industry that grew 13 per cent to £2.75bn worldwide last year, according to the American industry magazine Billboard Boxscore. The growth was in stark contrast to CD and digital music sales, which are showing falls of up to 10 per cent in Britain and America over the last year.

Data due to be released later this month is expected to reveal that UK music sales have fallen by up to a third in the last five years to £1.33bn due to the corrosive effects of piracy, fans buying single tracks rather than albums via digital download sites such as iTunes, and heavy discounting of top-selling titles by supermarkets and online retailers.

The result is that performers, whose share of the profits from album sales can be as little as 10 per cent, are increasingly looking to other methods of generating income.

Where once live tours were an arduous publicity exercise undertaken over many months of hotel rooms and sweaty venues to drive record sales, now the tables have turned. U2, who are due to tour this year following the release of a new album, had sales of about £103m from their previous effort, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. The accompanying tour, which ended in 2006 made £268m.

Once spin-offs, from car parking to merchandising of garments (one heavy metal band accessorised their tour with £200 biker helmets) are factored in, it is clear that the “value” in music lies in persuading fans to part with large sums to see someone sing it live.

As one senior record company executive put it: “The real money now lies in the live stuff. If you have a big property like a Madonna or a Kylie or a Police, you want to put them on the road. Unfortunately, the problem from our point of view is that its the promoters and the performers who make most of the money from a set-piece worldwide tour. Not us.”